Tuesday, 7 August 2012

I'm seeing more and more newly released roguelikes not being featured in the usual places that I collect games released for the year for the Ascii Dreams poll. While I appreciate the growth of the genre, it also puts me in a similar position to where I was in last year, where I may have to consider going outside the parameters I've set for letting people qualify in order to include notable new releases.

I'd like to have a more considered discussion around where I should be collecting entries from: should it be a case of trying to keep the existing Rogue Basin releases and the Active Developing Roguelikes list up to date? Or should I be including other sources (like Free Indie Games) which feature roguelikes periodically, or even go further afield to sites which have a commercial focus with the intent of being more inclusive but at the same time perhaps more controversial in terms of what is in the list? I've deliberately highlighted Free Indie Games, because for me it is important that the poll celebrates non commercial and hobbyist games as much as indies and commercial releases.

There's also a practical balance here: it is already a big effort consolidating the two sources I usually use, without having to comb through non-roguelike related material to find entries. I should also be clear that I'm not criticizing Michał Bieliński (of Actively Developing Roguelikes) or any of the regular contributors to Rogue Basin for failing to include these games: with the rise of roguelikes and indie games in general there's just more places where these games are coming from and being promoted in.

5 comments:

Well it's your poll so it's up to you what goes in. If people don't like that then they shouldn't vote for those games. As for the organisational part, post around asking for help before the poll - many hands make light work.

Well...sounds like a huge job. Do what you can, then post a tentative list to a few forums and call for additions. Guys like Getter, Slash and the like will surely help add a few. As will I. The goal should be to make as complete a list as possible, which will assure your poll remains the definitive one.

.. and then point them to Roguebasin, or update an entry yourself. I'd like to think that there was a canonical list for these, and Roguebasin is the closest so far (in my mind). Hopefully the number of outliers will diminish rather than increase as Roguebasin is more widely known.

.. and then point them to Roguebasin, or update an entry yourself. I'd like to think that there was a canonical list for these, and Roguebasin is the closest so far (in my mind). Hopefully the number of outliers will diminish rather than increase as Roguebasin is more widely known.

.. and then point them to Roguebasin, or update an entry yourself. I'd like to think that there was a canonical list for these, and Roguebasin is the closest so far (in my mind). Hopefully the number of outliers will diminish rather than increase as Roguebasin is more widely known.